Your HSC Success Story

Sep 3, 2019

You have everything you need to create your very own HSC Success Story.

When we look around at those who are achieving the success which we want for ourselves, it is easy to fall into the trap of attributing those people as having ‘super powers’ i.e. they are smarter, luckier, have a better teacher…

However, in reality they have the same super powers as everyone else. The only difference being that the students who get the results are always working on developing those superpowers.

The truth about our abilities:

  • We all have a brain that has the ability to learn and relearn with every experience and thought.
  • We all have the ability to develop a growth mindset, that is, the belief that we can learn and develop skills with consistent and intentional practice.
  • You have the same number of hours of every other person studying the HSC this year.

Remember that those students who have ‘super powers’ are just like you except that they put their powers to the test every single day and operate with a Growth Mindset i.e. I’m not great at Algebra yet..

Tips for parents to support the development of a Growth Mindset:

  1. Use examples from your own life experience to discuss how you developed necessary skills through determination, making mistakes and consistency of effort.
  2. Help your child identify a time in their life that they did develop a skill such as riding a bike, passing a rugby ball on their bad side, a particular subject they overcame challenges, learning to drive a car etc. the more your child can understand that the brain can learn new skills the better.
  3. If your child is making statements such as ‘I’m just hopeless at essay writing’ or ‘I just can’t do it’ this would suggest they are approaching the task with a fixed mindset so reminders that no one was born a great essay writer and no one was born a great __________ (insert a skill that your child appreciates and respects)

Approaching the HSC with the mindset and belief that you too have superpowers is a much more successful strategy than saying ‘I just can’t do it’